Moo Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, Ian and I both individually sat on Mikey's bed and explained that tomorrow is a very special day, it's Christmas, and he was going to get presents, and Mikey sat there and nodded seriously. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."

The next morning, however, was like any weekend, where he woke up and wanted to be cuddled in our bed, and drink juice, and eat Marmite on toast, and watch Toy Story 3 on TV. Finally, we persuaded him to go with us to the living room and look under the tree, where we had wrapped and stacked up a pile of presents the night before. The one item that was unwrapped was a rocking horse which was actually a cow, and he got on that and rocked away, oblivious to the other gifts. Finally, we handed him a present and he unwrapped it, and played with it with enthusiasm, still showing no interest in opening up more. That's the way it went -- he was enthusiastic about everything, but didn't do the full orgy of tearing up presents that we were expecting. In fact, it wasn't until Boxing Day he finished opening all his presents, and then after he opened the last, he said, "More! More presents!"

Lots of great stuff. Buzz Lightyear was a big theme, and so was music. He's been playing with a stand-up keyboard we bought for him, and on Boxing Day, we went to our friends Graham and Ali and they gave him a drum set which we have yet to put together.

Right now, Mikey’s keyboard compositions are very modern, atonal dissonance with accompanying Gregorian style glossolalia. I'm hoping he goes more commercial, but that's my pop sensibility.

I tend to call Mikey "Mikey Moo." The other day, he called out to me as "Daddy Moo!" And then on Boxing Day at breakfast, I said something about "Mikey Moo," and he began moo-ing like a cow. When I realized what he was doing, I began laughing, and he looked at me very seriously, "No, Daddy, not funny." So I had to stop laughing while he continued to moo with a very stern expression on his face, which is about the hardest thing I've done in a long time.

Here’s the obvious: Christmas is for kids. I don’t see why anyone without them would like the day in the least. When you become a parent, it can be your favorite holiday again.

Stage Father

For the last month, Mikey has been practicing for his preschool’s holiday concert. There were four songs to sing: “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “The Dreidel Song,” and “Feliz Navidad.” With great enthusiasm, we would sing them all together after school, applauding as he rocked back and forth and punctuated certain words (“Eh eh eh eh eh NOSE! Eh eh eh eh GLOWS!”), or acting out certain parts of the song (laying his head horizontally across his hands in the universal sign for sleeping during the line “He sees you when you’re sleeping” in SCICTT). On that Friday, we got him dressed up in his prescribed outfit and accessories – white shirt, black pants, Santa Claus hat, and flashlight – and got him to school.

We returned at 10 am for the concert, and were ushered into an overcrowded classroom, filled with parents with a little space for the kids to perform at the front. After squeezing in, it was the running of the toddlers as they all came into the room, screaming, laughing, and crying. Half took the stage, and half ran into their parents arms and clung. Mikey was one of the clingers.

So we sang along with the kids on stage from the audience.


Ironically, that evening, Mikey did want to go up on stage. Unfortunately, it was the stage of the El Portal Theatre where we took him to see his first English panto, in a performance of “Cinderella.” If you’ve never been, a panto is a British tradition, a performance for the whole family with sing-a-longs, cross-dressing (the ugly stepsisters are always played by men), improvised chatter with the audience, and lots of dancing and corny, slightly saucy jokes. Before it had begun, Mikey was down the aisle and up on stage, to the applause of the people finding their seats, and the consternation of the stage manager.

He was transfixed by the dancing and singing, and joined with the audience to boo the ugly stepsisters, and we had a great time.

A family holiday tradition is born.